Mangled
by Kiwisilence
Summary: "Those eyes...they were haunting. They were too stunning, as if they caught Snake up in a half-blind twilight haze by simply looking at them." Eli/Snake slash.


My goal for this is to take a crack-pairing and write it in a serious, dark and emotive way. I'm also tired of canon-shipping in the fandom, so I choose this pairing as my first venture into it.

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Chapter 1: Poured

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Of men and gods, Eli Goldsworthy was neither.

He was not a child and Snake couldn't pretend that upon seeing the boy...no, creature...enter his office. Eli was a dark being, an angel cast from grace. He might have looked the part of a teenager, but dark thoughts festered within him.

In other words, he was nothing like the nasty sweat-tanks that Snake was forced to call the school's teenage students. They were mousey and grimy...even the thought of being around them was suffocating. The very air felt filthy from them. Degrassi's students must have been culled from the lowest trenches of society: they were less humans and more so breeding stock cursed with teenage pregnancies and school shootings.

Eli was dark but practically saintly compared to that abyss.

He had all the hints of the darkness of the school, but unlike the dark, troubled youths Snake had taught previously, Eli was...simply pretty. He had a grace, an untainted softness, that was nothing like the other students. Eli definitely was not the first mentally unstable child to have graced Degrassi, for Snake still remembered his days teaching Craig Manning. Despite that Eli had so many similarities with past and current students, something still was alluring about him. Something still was exotically different.

The boy was just as mentally unstable and violent as the average Degrassi student. Nothing should have intrigued the elder man. Perhaps the only difference was that Snake found him beautiful. Eli walked the tightrope between being a twisted, violent wreck and being truly innocent.

The innocence was seen in flashes of his eyes.

Those eyes...they were haunting. They were too stunning, as if they caught Snake up in a half-blind twilight haze by simply looking at them. It was hard to discipline Eli, but Snake had restrained his attention to the boy long enough to affect the role of a stern principal.

He couldn't dare fathom acting any other way...that road would only sink him into further damnation. Eli's face was too inviting; it was a rich, dark tea beaming to be drank by the elder man.

Snake gulped, forcing away thoughts of a weaker man. He needed to return to the present and to affecting normalcy. Eli would not let him slip.

Snake had already forced Becky Baker and Eli into producing the school's play together. He could control Eli under enough mental control.

"I thought Miss Baker was going to meet me about the play."

Snake silently hoped that Eli wasn't in trouble and was solely here for the play. His nerves couldn't take having to yell and punish the boy.

Even when Eli was threatened with being expelled, his eyes still looked seductive, almost daring the man for more punishments. He must not think more into what he could do...

"I don't want to do Romeo and Juliet."

Eli didn't yell, but Snake could tell that the boy was biting back his tongue. He still had anger issues, but over the years, he had learned some control. Eli could at least not yell at Snake.

"Look, Eli." Snake sighed. "You can still use this in your NYU portfolio. This is a highschool play anyways. No matter what you choose to produce, you'll still have to deal with bad, over-dramatic actors. Realize that and your audience. This isn't Broadway. This isn't even an Off-Off-Broadway cardboard box production of Cats. It's a silly highschool play."

He wouldn't have been honest with any other student. Not even his student-turned-daughter Emma inspired that honesty. Emma was sanctimonious and head-strong, just like her mother. Years of that family must be finally marring Snake's mind if he was succumbing to Eli Goldsworthy.

Instead of screaming, Eli didn't even know how to respond. He simply stared, strangely eyeing the principal before him. Snake supposed that he had never said anything...so weak and human before Eli.

It was the start of his facade crumbling. His life was mangled by Eli's charms.

"I..." Eli tried speaking, but kept pausing and looking down at the ground. "I just want something to be proud of."

"A highschool play isn't something to be proud of Eli. Just like the school elections, everyone here cares too much...like it determines their value as a person. You're still a smart student, Eli. You're definitely smarter than that."

"Then why did you pair me with her!" Anger finally poured into Eli's words.

"Just because she's a flawed young woman doesn't mean you still can't learn from her."

Everything was wrong with this current conversation and for once...Snake simply didn't care. He had never seen Eli so emotionally vulnerable with him. Neither had the boy. An emotional dam was on the verge of breaking.

"I hate her. She's conservative, spiteful, and petty. And she acts so nice about it. Life isn't all sunshine and flowers for such a horrible person." Eli spat out, his eyes locking with Snake's.

A better man would have kicked the boy out of his office. A stronger man would never have let him in.

"You can be just as mean and underhanded as she is."

He had crossed a line of professionalism by saying that, but Eli couldn't deny it. It was by some miracle that Eli was still at the school after all these years. he had always teetered into succumbing into even greater darkness. Snake was glad that Eli hadn't gone the way of Rick, but several of the makings were there.

"What do you know about me?" Since Eli didn't know how to respond, he simply resorted into childish hysterics.

It was angsty and predictable. Snake would have been annoyed by any other student, but with Eli, he could forgive him.

Instead of yelling back, he merely spoke calmly to the boy. "Calm down, Eli. Like I said, you're a smart student. If someone can turn Hamlet into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I'm sure you can re-write a simple Degrassi play. I might have paired you with Becky, but you still have control."

Eli's lips parted, his mind clouded with thoughts of what he could do. Snake could only stare, stealing the image of the boy's lips before him. At times like this, Eli was cherub-like, his every motion an act of divine love, instead of the twisted teen he usually was.

"I...can make do. Maybe you're right, Mr. Simpson."

To Snake, the name Mr. Simpson felt wrong coming from Eli's lips. It was too formal, too depersonalized. A shaky emotional connection of sorts had been established between the two despite few sentences and stares having been shared.

"Don't you have class now?"

He forced himself to ask that question, despite that it would end this meeting. Eli was a slice of poignant pomegranate in an otherwise dry, tasteless day.

"I have my lunch break...I don't want to go back yet."

With few words, an opening had been created. An invitation...into darkness. "Stay, Eli. We could discuss the play. Do you like parodies? What about Juliet being a robot? A cylon? Or the half-vampire, half-human bastard that gets imprinted by a werewolf?"

The students usually thought that their principal was too old and unrelatable to understand them. He knew their interests and he knew how to play them well. Eli might be more intelligent and pretentious than the other teens his age, but that didn't mean he wouldn't understand Twilight.

Eli snickered at the last part. "Juliet and her Romeo, the dashing shirtless werewolf...I don't think I'd object to that.

No, Eli could never return his affections, let alone have interest in men. Sinful youth-mentor love was a dream of novels by Vladimir Nabokov and not a reality for someone as plain as Snake. He couldn't read too much into Eli's joke. Eli was open enough to tease about such things, but that didn't mean he was open enough to tease a grown man.

"Who even needs Juliet?" Snake laughed back at Eli.

They both snickered, Snake somewhat awkwardly, but Eli seemed to enjoy their conversation. Eli's visit was as up and down as his mental stability; of course he would enjoy it.

"I'm sure Romeo can find some, dashing, young boy-toy to kill himself for."

"Who says that Romeo isn't a dashing, young boy-toy seeking the attention of an older man?" Snake's eyes gleamed. The awkwardness has dissolved and his emotions were purely driving his words.

All rational thought had deceased; it had been poured away and forgotten.

"Yes, a Romeo...with daddy issues. That's what Degrassi wants in its play. It's somehow even more Christian and wholesome than what Becky originally planned."

"Romeo is just respecting his elders...and honoring thy neighbor." Snake was compelled to return Eli's jokes. He rarely heard the boy's laugh. It was melodic; a bird-like sound that needed to be jarred up and hoarded by Snake. It was too delicious to share with others.

"It would be even better if Becky cast her brother as Romeo. Praise Jesus, that boy is a bottom."

Snake laughed, but restrained himself from just cackling at the younger boy. Eli's conversation wasn't just jokes; there were subtle hints laced throughout.

Straight boys didn't joke about bottoms.

Straight boys...hell, even normal boys, never came into their principal's office to have this conversation.

Snake always clung to the idea of Eli as an innocent, but the facts kept tipping the other way. This boy fully knew what he was doing. He commanded everything he did, from the graceful strides of his walk to every word he emitted. Eli always thought out was he said.

He was always planned what he did...

This meeting was more than just a discussion on the play. Snake couldn't bring himself to ponder Eli returning his feelings, but Eli had nonetheless came here and teased him.

Perhaps even Eli's emotional outburst about Becky had been calculated. What had seemed like a predictable, hormonal teenager raging about someone they hated was a ploy to weaken Snake's mental defenses.

If so, it had worked. It had worked wonderfully. Snake was drowning in Eli's presence. He was too happy, too deliciously loopy around the boy.

He felt youthful and powerful: emotions long since denied to him by his overbearing wife and emotionally draining family. Both Emma and Jack had torn slices of his sanity away. He hadn't been ready to be father to either.

Snake felt nothing like a father nor even a principal to Eli. One look in the boy's eyes and he was consumed. School didn't bother him, nor did the complications of his life. He could simply be himself without a role to play.

"How do you even what a bottom is, Eli?"

This was another comment that could lose him his job, but so had everything else he had said to the boy. If he was digging himself into a hole, he might as well engulf himself and surrender.

"It's certainly a better noun to describe myself than teenager or student, Mr. Simpson."

Eli stood up, walking to the door. His face turned, winking at the principal. "I'm glad we had this discussion. I'll be sure to come back for any more...alterations with the play."

With that, the boy was gone, leaving a dumbstruck buffoon in his wake. Snake could no longer refer to himself using respectful terms.

He was an indulgent idiot.

Eli would either keep his promise and return and use this meeting...for what, Snake couldn't imagine. Only in Eli's absence could he think clearly. He had jeopardized his family and reputation for Eli Goldsworthy...

The devil in a student's flesh.

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AN: How long should this fic be? Should Snake/Eli last or face a tragic end? Anyways, this fic won't ever get graphic.


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